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Harvey Nelson
My name is Harvey Nelson. We're at our residence here in Bloomington,
Minnesota. This is the fourteenth day of June 2002 and we're going to visit a bit
about some of the old migratory bird programs and people in the days gone by.
I've got to stop and think where it all started here. When I came back out of
World War II, I went back to the University of Minnesota and I, I started out to be
a veterinarian originally and then I found out that Minnesota didn't have a vet
school at that time so you had to finish up at Iowa State so after do that for a
couple of years I decided I'd, I wanted to do something different and I had a long
interest in fish and wildlife management which was you know, coming into the
forefront at that time and they were beginning to give degrees in that and, and
most all of the course work I had taken qualified for, for that program as well so I
just shifted over and, and I stayed there at the University of Minnesota, did my,
got my other graduate degree there in, must have been 40, 49 and I stayed on in
graduate school for a year or more and at that time of course jobs were pretty
hard to come by, fish and wildlife management was a program that was evolving
at the state level after World War II. A lot of the original people in the programs
had come back and you know, some went on back to school, others you know
were in the jobs that they had so in the process my wife and I decided that it was
time I went, went to work. So, I had applied for you know, work for the state of
Minnesota where I had worked part time as a, as a graduate student over the
years and then I'd, had applied for work with the Fish and Wildlife Service and
low and behold in the, in the spring of 1950 I suddenly found myself offered a
couple of different jobs with Minnesota D and R that was expanding right then but
more importantly I got some offers from the Fish and Wildlife Service and
because I was interested in, in the wetland programs I'd worked with in
Minnesota at that time and migratory birds, waterfowl particularly, I'd kind of
grown up in that atmosphere I decided that by golly, if I could get a job at the Fish
and Wildlife Service that was what I was going to do and so I did. I went to work
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with the Fish and Wildlife Service in, I think it was June of 1950 and started it in
South Dakota where they were just beginning the first wetland program, the Wall
Bay study area where Ken Black and Tom Evens had started that program and I
was assigned to the Sand Lake Refuge, International Wildlife Refuges out at
Columbia, South Dakota, just east of Aberdeen and my first assignments were
on the Wall Bay study area program and the wetland program with Black and
Evens and of course their, their years of work were published (inaudible) many
years later and quite, you know quite a renowned piece of work but I had the
privilege of working with those people and then from that point on I spent the next
two years at the Sand Lake Refuge but also working in other parts of the
migratory bird program and you know I've always considered myself fortunate
that I had the opportunity to work with some of those old timers that were just
putting the program together you know, guys like Art Hawkins had become the
Mississippi flyway representative at that point, Jerry Stout that lived in Aberdeen
was one of my first you know, study area bosses when I worked with him both in
South Dakota and in Canada and oh, some of the old enforcement people like
Everett Sutton was the game agent out of Aberdeen and had a lot of involvement
in the early programs and then over the years even though I left there you know,
many of the people came into that same arena guys like Milt Reeves, you were
just talking about and a whole host of other folks that were early people in the
program but again I was fortunate that I had an opportunity to you know, work
with some of those people that, that set up some of the first you know, ground
transects to measure breeding population and duck production initially in the
Dakotas and then expanded into Canada and, and like guys like Jerry Stout that
started the first, some of the first summer banding programs where we went out
and you know, literally dry trapped the, the adults, the females and the young
around the small ponds and so some of that early work was done there in the
early 50's. So, that's how I sort of you know, got into the program and evolved
into other kinds of job opportunities. After leaving the Dakotas I, I went to
Saginaw, Michigan and set up Shy A Walsy National Wildlife Refuge in the
Saginaw Valley, Judy and I lived there for three years putting that place on the
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map. Then I came back and oh, I worked in the regional office here in
Minneapolis at that time and spent a couple of tours of duty in training programs
in Washington, DC and in that process I, of course I was always interested in
research and had an opportunity to do further work in research while I was in
Michigan I finished my Master's Degree at Michigan State University and then
additional work on my PHD and I came back and one of those tours of duty I was
in Washington I had an opportunity to go into research for about 10, 12 years and
the first thing, the first assignment I had was to go back to North Dakota and set
up the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center which we started in 1963 and
then the buildings were completed in '65 and we staffed the program up in '65--
Well, based on what they learned in the wetland research program, the study
areas and that type of thing, what they were learning from the new survey
programs in the prairie pothole region of the US and Canada it became pretty
obvious that there was just a lot of more specific information needing, needed on
the breeding ecology of the prairie species and to tie that into the wetland
communities and that was sort of the foundation for setting up the Northern
Prairie Center, to begin to identify the, the relationships between breeding
populations and the habitat requirements in the prairie region particularly and that
was the mission that we started with. Then we also had to look at all the other
factors that, that influenced the, the success of production, you know be it
habitat, changing seasonal conditions, the draught periods, predation impacts, all
of these things had a direct influence on the, the size of the annual waterfowl
population of the prairie region of US and Canada. At the same time they set up
a comparable research group the, the Canadian Wildlife Service set up a
comparable group in Sasqutuen and that group is, you know expired too but the
program is still there. So, anyway again, I was fortunate because I had an
opportunity to, to start a new program and had an opportunity to hire just a lot of
good people that were interested in that kind of work and over the years many of
those people spent their career doing these things for the Service at Northern
Prairie and other places and so it was an interesting assignment, probably one of
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the most challenging I think I had my whole career and then while I was at
Jamestown I also, I got back in school again, I served on the graduate faculty at
North Dakota State University and continued to work on my graduate program
which they eventually, they eventually gave me a Doctor of Science Degree from
North Dakota State University for some of those efforts but anyway, at the same
time of course, we, we still had this network of, of old timers so to speak that
were, were still working in programs and helping to find the needs and so you
know, through the years the, you talked about some of these folks today you
know, the Art Hawkins and the Jerry Stouts of the world and Horton Jenson and
Milt Reeves and John Rogers that came on the scene later in the Washington
office that worked in the Manitoba Prairies on Scop early on and so it was kind of
a different atmosphere for, unless you came up through the ranks and came
through the programs you had a strong association with all these people and I
think that's, that's what helped make those programs so you know, successful
back in those days, didn't really have a lot of money to do these things. We were
lucky to get money to hire people and building new facilities was a, you know,
another challenge but eventually we got the support to do it and of course that
program is still there, still very active. And then I left, I left Jamestown research
program in, it must have been '74 or '75, went to Washington, Len Greenwald got
me back in there. Len was the Director at the time and so I went in there and I
spent several years as the Associate Director of the Service for the Fish and
Wildlife Resources and again, that was another new challenge and again, during
that period I had an opportunity to you know, to put employees, a lot of the other
administrative structures and program structures that were needed to, to manage
or provide some oversight for the whole field program in the whole migratory bird
arena. At that time you know, Walt Crissey was a very prominent researcher
and, and waterfowl manager at the, at Pautuxent around Laurel, Maryland. He
and, and Al Guise and others did some renowned work and they're still around
and very much interested in those things. So, out of all of that sort of emerged
the, the establishment of the office of migratory bird management and for the last
20, 30 years that's involved into the main research and management group
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dealing with migratory birds, particularly waterfowl on the North American
continent.
Well, there had been a lot of changes in the Washington office in terms, and the
Service as a whole as to how the organization was structured but, but back in
those days they had, it was simpler I mean, you had one entity that was
responsible for you know, Fish and Wildlife resources and another for, for
enforcement and then of course the ole, river basins program, ecological
services programs, see bald through on the other side of the picture an
endangered species program came into being, all of those things you know,
weren't there when I first went to work, when program needs you know sort of
dictated that, that they would have to be established to carry out that
responsibility. So, it was easier to do things I guess I would say but by the same
token, there was a defined need both in US and Canada particularly that the
migratory bird programs you know, needed to have better coordination, better
cooperation and the other thing we did at about that time that carried over almost
into present days was, we set up what we called a program review committee
between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service and
John Rodgers headed the migratory bird group at that point and he and I sort of
were the main US representatives and Jim Patterson and others from the
Canadian Wildlife Service did the same thing on the Canadian side and that
really lead to a you know, a major improvement in terms of coordination of
programs both in the US and Canada, breeding grounds, migration areas,
wintering programs all began to be tied together a lot better then they had been
so I viewed that as, it was a real need at that point and obviously it existed and it
was, was you know satisfied to a large degree and then of course out of that
whole arrangement you know, came some other predictions and, and needs that
were defined and one of those lead to the establishment or development of the
North American Waterfowl Management Plan so, but then I left Washington in I
think it was '74, '75 and I came back to the Twin cities as the regional director for,
for the north central region at that time and I spent another seven years doing
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that, during which time the whole concept of the North American Waterfowl
Management Program came into focus and I worked you know, with our folks
and various state people through the international association of Fish and Wildlife
agencies with the Canadian counterparts and we began to put together the
foundation for the North American plan. In, I think it was in 1986, '87, the plan
was signed finally in '86 and because I'd worked with that so close in it's
development and I was about ready to retire then, I'd, I'd spent all those years,
37 years I guess it was at that time but they, they asked me to stay another five
years and, and implement the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. So,
I agreed to do that, of course we started it, the implementation group out of the
Minneapolis office because that's where I was and we did that for about a year
and a half and kind of got things up and running and we got the joint venture
concept put in place and I think we started out with the five initial joint ventures
and had some grandiose plans but little by little it all fell in place and then it
became obvious that the program was getting bigger and the funding base had to
be established and you know, through Congressional support we got the North
American Wetlands Conservation Act passed and that provided the first major
US funding, you know direct funding, Federal funding for the plan matched by
state money and in 1990 we moved the office back to Washington DC because
we needed to be there by then. So, I went back and spent the last year and a
half in, back in DC when we set up the office there in Arlington, Virginia where it
still exists.
Well, there's no, you know, no question in my mind that there definitely just been
a whole host of people that have been involved from say the early 50's, mid 50's
right on through to, to, to today, different programs, a lot of changes. The biggest
changes have been in the landscape and unfortunately that continues to be the
major, the major problem but just looking back, see we went through some
relatively high waterfowl population levels in the mid 50's, that's about the time
the survey programs were coming into being and the, and the measurement
techniques probably were certainly not as great as they are, as good as they are
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today and they always need improvement so we don't quite know the magnitude
of what existed back in the mid 50's but you know, based on the survey data and
the hunting opportunity and the harvest surveys that were put in place at that
time had to be some of the best years. Then, of course these things are cycling
and particularly dealing with, with prairie ducks US and Canada, even more
cyclic because of periodic draught. So, we went though, you know some periodic
declines in, in habitat conditions in from a natural standpoint, both US and
Canadian prairies and then we get some wet cycles and things would recover
again but you know woven in all of this in both countries of course was a
continual loss and degradation of wetland habitat and grassland habitat. So,
while populations were you know, increasing on one had, the habitat quantity and
quality was declining on the other. So, of course many other kinds of programs
had been put in place to try to, to halt the decline or deterioration of habitat and
early on it be, it was well recognized that it would be virtually impossible for any
one or group of Federal agencies or state agencies singley or collectively to
handle this habitat program in terms of all of the requirement, everything that
needed to be done simply because there were not enough dollars and people to
do that, implement that kind of a program. It became obvious that down the
road, the future of wetlands and waterfowl really rested in terms of what happens
on private lands and as a result there was a whole you know, new wave of
programs and interest to try to dove tail wetland, grassland, waterfowl
management, migratory bird management with private lands programs, with the
Department of Agriculture's farm programs. It started with, way back with the,
with the soil bank geese that's evolved into what we have today in terms of CRP
and, and WRP, the, the water, wetland reserve program, the crop line reserve
program and those have been really tremendous Federal programs that have
provided you know, great opportunity to work with land owners to get them to
preserve and protect and manage important wetlands and grasslands on private
lands for in, for the incentives that they are provided through those programs you
know, of course then to supplement that the states and the Service continue to
expand their, their individual wetland programs you know, be it Minnesota’s has a
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big, you know wetland protection program that they started back in the, in the late
50's and the Dakota's and others have had comparable things, to the different
degrees and that of course serves as waterfowl production program, waterfowl
production area program into being you know back in the, in the late 50's, early
60's and has continued to be another important cog in all of this. So, if you,
you've had all these programs but you've also had these cyclic influences, return
of draught conditions and increased hunting pressure, increased demand for
hunting opportunity on the major species of waterfowl so while conditions have
fluctuated the, the way I like to cast this is that in spite of all of this and there
have been a lot of good programs put in place and a lot of you now conscientious
people working with these programs that helped make them successful be it in
Agriculture or Fish and Wildlife or Federal level, state level, whatever, whenever,
every time we'd decline or lose some ground and get to the low point of the cycle,
when we'd recover you'd never quite come back to where things were and that's
been a continuing problem as I see it in all of these management programs and
demand is still there, draught cycles will come and go but the problem is we're
losing, continue to lose ground in terms of habitat on private lands and in
Canada, the situation is even more complex because even though they've had
some, some, some good prairie management programs at the Provincial level
and Federal level they've never been able to implement or establish a major land
use, land management programs and private lands comparable to like the CRP
program in the US or the wetland reserve program in the US and they're still
trying to do that. So, as a result even on the Canadian scene where there were
even greater numbers of wetlands per, per square mile or whatever unit you want
to use, things have declined equally and unfortunately probably has some more,
more severe impact. So, we go though all these cycles and all these programs
trying to maintain the best quantity and quality of what we have out there in terms
of wetlands and grasslands in full production or shallow lakes or reservoirs for
migration use or the same is true in the wintering areas. It’s an insidious whittling
away at that base. Now, we just went through a fairly good water period in the
prairies and went back to fairly high levels of, of duck populations just during the
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past two years, 2000, 2001 probably was you know, excited as a very good year.
At the same time the draught picture started to come around the corner and now
we’re back looking at draught in the prairies and a decline in populations and that
means more restrictive hunting regulations, declining duck populations
particularly, don’t want to get into geese, that’s another, another situation but so
for all these 50 years or more everybody that’s been involved is, has been
working in this sort of cyclic program and, and the natural swing of things comes
and goes, all these other programs that have been put in place and there’s some
very good programs have been an attempt to, to prevent any further degradation
or loss of habitat and it’s been difficult and it will continue to be difficult and --
Well, back again after World War II and through the 40’s into the 50’s it was
recognized back in those days that there needed to be a stronger united front
presented by the hunting community and Ducks Unlimited of course, was one of
the first groups organized in the US and in Canada and Mexico that took on this
challenge to address the habitat protection issue through their members and fund
raising opportunities that they had. This also transcended into organization at
the state level like state waterfowl associations like here in Minnesota as I
mentioned, you know, since I retired ten years, 11 years ago I do a lot of work
with the Minnesota waterfowl association that’s dedicated to you know,
addressing this issue in the state of Minnesota, similar activities, similar
organizations in many other states. Local sportsmen organizations you know,
whatever their origins may be, have an opportunity to help you know, become
involved in these programs and over the years there have been a lot of attempts
to try to further unite the interest and support base of all of these hunting and
fishing community interests, same thing is true even on the fishing side but it’s a
difficult task, the interest is there, the organization structure is there in most
cases but when it comes down to developing a strong support base for national
legislation that would dictate and determine what kind of programs are authorized
and funded by Congress or what kind of programs are authorized and funded at
the state level by state legislators the strength often isn’t there and that’s a, that’s
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a bugaboo that the fish and wildlife community and those areas of interest that
have been faced since, ever since I’ve been around, have been so many
different attempts to try to organize that and there have been a lot of successful
attempts. I think we can look at the continuation of the, of the conservation
phases of the farm program, since 1985, a lot of that never would have
happened if there hadn’t been an organized, strongly supported local effort state
by state to make those things happen. Same is true at the state level, you know I
spent a lot of time with different conservation organizations here in Minnesota
and, and it’s a constant struggle to get the state legislature to recognize the need
of natural resource programs compared to all the other things that they need to
fund to get some balance in the picture and keep that focus there for now and for
the future. So, it’s, it occurs at the state level, it occurs at the national level. It’s
important that the hunting community, the fishing community maintain their
organizations that they can work through but they also need to be more active
and be more participative in supporting their cause because the final analysis,
those decisions are made by Congressional levels and at the state local interest,
the state legislatures.
I guess, you know just to wind up what we were talking about earlier, you know,
again I consider myself fortunate that I you know, came down the road through
the Fish and Wildlife Service you know, with many opportunities and a lot of good
programs, a lot of good people to help make all these things work and I was in
positions where I had an opportunity to you know, have some influence on trying
to move things in the right direction including the years how we revamped and
reestablished with John Rogers the whole regulatory setting process, that’s a
story in itself.
But anyway, I think in over the years, as I was saying in spite of all of these good
programs and, and struggles to get adequate fundings to support these programs
and many good programs are still in place and doing great things the North
American Waterfowl Management plan, classic example but in spite of that, you
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know there’s an increase to our public out there that are not fully aware of the,
the perhaps the significance of the North American Migratory Bird program, how
it originated, what’s gone into it and what it means to a lot of people in the long
terms, to a lot of agencies in the long term. There’s also been a change in, in the
interest of hunters, on one hand you know, over the years there, for a while we
had a, sort or a gradual interest, increase in the overall number of hunters but
then we reached a point that the segment of hunters that are waterfowl hunters
or migratory bird hunters began to decline, probably replaced by hunter interest
could be done easier at a local level, like more deer hunters, to balance it out but
at the same time as the overall human population is increased in the whole North
American continent there’s been a stronger interest by non-hunters, people that
consider themselves non-hunters, organized or not organized and over the years
of course we’ve spent a lot of time you know, working with, talking with the anti-hunting
groups if you want to cast them that way and that interest group
continues to be there and it in many cases you know continues to maintain it’s
strength and, at least, I’m, I’m no longer directly involved in a lot of that but I see
it still happening and in spite of the facts that you can lay on a table and support
the, the cause if you will for migratory bird hunting there is just an element that,
that’s just opposed to that and you reach a point, you have to ask yourself how
much effort is it really worth to continue to do this kind of a battle while the
resources are going down the drain. If we could channel some of the effort into
more positive things for the resource base then it seems to me we, we’d all be
further along and then we’d be doing things more constructive. It’s a tough, it’s a
tough issue. There’s a lot of, a lot of different organizational effort at the state
level particularly. It varies depending on what part of the geographic part of the
US you’re in but here in the Midwest and the prairie country a lot of that interest
still centers around migratory birds and waterfowl particularly and there’s a,
there’s a continual need to, to have some oversight in terms of what these
organizations are doing and what their, what their plans are, what they tackle,
what they challenge and I expect that will continue. I, when I was still in official
capacity where I had to deal directly with these issues, my position was that you
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gotta deal with the facts on the table and if you’re honest with everybody and got
the facts in front of you that’s pretty hard to refute, that usually will survive in the
face of personal opinion and a whole lot of organizational concepts.
Well, my sense is that that support basis is, is still there and the strength of it
depends to a large degree upon the issues of the moment, what kind of
involvement is being requested by the primary Congressional people and
particularly those that are involved with the major committees that deal with
natural resource programs including the Fish and Wildlife Service. You know, we
never would have gotten the North American Wetlands Conservation Act passed
if a few key Congressional people hadn’t gotten behind it and said this needs to
be done and, and we see that today in the farm program. Unfortunately, I think in
this whole process there also have been other issues, other kinds of programs
that have surfaced you know, like the endangered species program, a very
necessary program in it’s own right but it’s also used at times to, in a different
sense to refute you know, practical wildlife management and hunting. So, it
needs to be a balance of these views and issues and how they’re dealt with at
the managerial level and I think that gets us in trouble at the Congressional level
sometimes again, depending upon how these programs and these issues are
reflected at the state level, at the local level, how they impact somebody, whether
it’s the kind of hunting season they are apt to have or, or can’t have or some land
restrictions, some private land management restriction that may result from some
endangered species issues. So, Fish and Wildlife managers today have a
difficult task and they really need to be up to date on all of these things to, to
achieve this balance of opinion and support, that’s the way I always try to
approach it but it’s tough to do.
When I first, well, when I was still in graduate school, late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s
and when I first went to work for the Service, the waterfowl regulations setting
process was, was apparently relatively simple in those days. Some of the key
folks that knew a little bit about what was going on in duck production in the US
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and Canada, mostly in the prairies or from some other key locations in the
country, got together and put their information together and said by gosh, this is
the way it looks and then they may have had a telephone call or two with
counterparts in Canada or they may have had a meeting at the border and in one
day’s time sort of arrived at some conclusions, yes, I guess we can have these
kinds of seasons and then they went back and, and put that into some kind of
recommendation like Fish and Wildlife Service to the Director and to the
Secretary of Interior and in the sort time there was a set of regulations. Well, it
was much easier to do because they were, they were certainly at one stage you
know, greater populations, more birds to deal with, hunting demand wasn’t
perhaps as great although there were a lot of hunters. It just hadn’t become as
institutionalized I guess you would say, at that point. Well, then it became
obvious as they began to learn more about waterfowl populations, duck
populations particularly from the Canadian, US breeding grounds surveys that
were implemented you know, in the ‘50’s and improved there on. They suddenly
began to realize that there’s a limit as to what the land can produce under given
conditions and in some cases, I mean maybe we can’t, if the populations are
dropping a little bit because of draught we’re going to have to have some
comparable decrease in harvest to balance that population level and of course
that’s what lead to the, the more formal organization of the, what became the
Office of Migratory Bird Management that Walt Crissey originally headed up and
John Rogers you know, succeeded him and, and then of course that also brought
in that whole new research element that provided a new base of information that
presumably gave them a greater capability in making, fine tuning decisions both
US and Canada and in, in a sense that’s the way it worked, the program was
good and I think the people that began to understand population dynamics based
on new research suddenly began to realize that hey, there’s some alarming
things here and there’s a limit to how much one can harvest or over, the
possibility of over harvesting given populations of birds and that’s still in the
background today. Well, in that whole process the Office of Migratory Bird
Management began to take on a greater prominence in the Fish and Wildlife
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Service and became the focal point for waterfowl management by the Fish and
Wildlife Service in, in combination through the states and the flyway councils and
of course the flyway councils were, were established in the, well, in the mid to
late ’50’s. I remember going to one of the first Mississippi flyway organizational
meetings here in St. Paul back in, it must have been ’51, ’52 and these were
common concerns you know, sometimes a little information you know, it wets
your appetite and you need to do better. So, out of all of that you know, it
became the, it was the origin of the flyway council system, the four flyway
councils established in the US, the technical sections of the flyway councils to
deal with the scientific information and the processes for bringing all this
information together in a meaningful way to be recast in terms of annual
regulations and there’s been a group of hard working people in that migratory
bird office for many years as you well know and continue to be and the problems
haven’t gone away. The process is there, I think the process they continue to
improve from a scientific point of view. There are just so many things that are,
that aren’t fully understood and just like right now, today there’s the concern that
hey, the production in 2002 is not going to be so good and what do we do about
that? Well, when they got into the adaptive harvest management strategy
planning process and that provided another new vehicle for presumably helping
do a better job of setting regulations (inaudible) crisis, what part of that set of
strategies is applicable when you start to go down hill and we’ll see what
happens in 2002.
Well, I was involved in, in a lot of the early discussions about the, you know the
theories and principles you have adaptive harvest management and I think, you
know I certainly support the concept. The theory I think is good and in practice if
you can define populations levels to the degree that the concept requires then it
seems to work but I'm not always certain that the population data you know, is, is
adequate or sufficient to provide the precise degree of information that they
apparently need to make it work and I think that's what they are facing now.
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They're trying to, kind of reassess, the principles of the adaptive harvest
management process but it's just one more tool.
Well, way back when the conservation movement you know, was started, I guess
you can go back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt but even to Ding Darling
when it came to migratory birds. One of the tenants of a lot of those early
programs and thinkers was that we've got to get people involved. We're
managing these programs and the resource for, in part for use by people. So,
you know, whether it's musky fisherman or goose hunters or duck hunters, they
need to be, get better organized so they can have a voice in the resource that
they use in terms of it's management and of course the way to do that was to
establish sportsman clubs in quotes, of one type or another to provide that type
of local organization but then they discovered that while you may have these
local organizations and a lot of these centered around private hunting clubs
originally because that's where the, the core interest was or the core group of
people that had the interest. So, it was sort of you know, a double edged
approach and I think the, while conservation organization whatever their titles
may have been you know whether, those that came under the umbrella of the
National Wildlife Federation or later what evolved through DEU or what's evolved
today at the state level in various states. The heart of that whole movement
came largely through, through hunting clubs or organizations of groups affiliated
with such mostly because they had the interest and a lot of them had to tie in and
political base to work from to promote it and a lot of them had the money to do it
so it took a combination of a lot of resources on that side to make things work.
So, in the, in the migratory bird work and the waterfowl hunting aspect hunting
clubs I think over the years you know, played a real strong role in, in how these
programs evolved and then many times they had better access to political
interests and influences then, and other elements at the state level for example.
So, they played a strong role there and I think they played even a stronger role
which is evident today where a lot of big private hunting clubs also protected and
managed some quality habitat. So, they played an equal role in the whole
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habitat protection and development and management aspect in, in certain parts
of the country, stronger in some areas then others. Strong in the coastal areas,
both Atlantic and Pacific as you know. It was fairly strong in the Great Lakes
because of the big marshes that were going down the tube and some of the best
ones that are made today are the ones that were private hunting clubs where
they've been bought up and turned into National Wildlife Refuge or state
management areas and that's usually history of many of these. So--
(End of side one)
a lot of conflicts as well but for the most part I think they played a positive role.
Well, I guess like I indicated in our discussion here today, I mean first of all, I
keep saying that I was fortunate because I came into this kind of work, kind of a
career at a time when there were just a lot of good people in the business, the
old timers that learned the hard way, a lot of them. Our, you know, world
renowned waterfowl people, wetland people even in today's world so an
opportunity to work with those people, gain that experience was a you know,
tremendous help for me. So, number one I had the opportunity to work with a lot
of good people and I've used that approach and that principle in most everything
I've done. I always looked for, if I had an opportunity to hire someone or to
employ people I always tried to get the best qualified there was, in the long run
it's paid off. Northern Prairie Research Center is a classic example, I think.
North American Plains and others but not all the challenges that I had over the
years, opportunities, I think the most challenging assignment I had was setting up
the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, getting that staffed up in short
order and getting some research programs on line that began to address the
problems that they, they wanted looked at and particularly to relate those to
management needs, not necessarily a long term research view. So we had to,
we had to establish a balance, short term, long term research program that
began to address you know, current management issues and that’s still true
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today. Probably, well no doubt and the second most challenging assignment
was to help develop the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and then
implement that effectively during the five year period that we allotted in
cooperation with Canada and Mexico.
But I guess among other things, the position that I, of all the positions that I’ve
had and opportunities and assignments in my whole career, almost 42 years one
of the most interesting and I’ve said this in other interviews and what now too,
and in press is being a Regional Director because a Regional Director in the Fish
and Wildlife Service at least through my tenure had an opportunity to through
good staff people and cooperation of the states and within our region to really
influence important programs and an opportunity to get things done and I look
back and wonder how many opportunities I might of missed but hopefully not a
lot because we always kind of used that approach like now is the time to make
things happen and I think that opportunity is still there and sometimes the regions
you know, they’re a little more autonomous then one would think but you still
have the whole organizational structure of the Fish and Wildlife Service and
having spent a lot of time in the Washington office as well as the regional office I
can, I always felt I could, at least I had a chance at balancing the, the
requirements in the administrative you know, authority to make things work. You
know, I always think about is that you know, I retired in ’92 so I’ve got 10 years of
retirement behind me now and, and that’s been interesting too but when anyone
retires from any type of a job you know, it’s difficult to keep up with the, with all
the current activity and, and I don’t look at the numbers as much as I used to in
terms of waterfowl populations or the dollars or the acres or whatever is going on
but I’m, I’m still concerned about everything moving in the right direction.
It’s kind of interesting that you asked that because I’ve got to go give a
presentation at a symposium here in Minneapolis next Friday that’s going to talk
about the or I’m going to talk about the future of wetlands and waterfowl
management. But, in a nutshell you know, the future is, it poses some difficult
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aspects, some difficult challenges. We talked about a lot of this already in terms
of programs that need to be kept in place to, there’s constant vigilance about
maintaining habitat quality and quantity as well as the, the population levels of
birds desired by not just the hunting public but the public at large that’s interested
in migratory birds so there’s another big dimension here about, in terms of people
that are interested in, in migratory bird resource or the wetland resource or the
grassland resource because when you put all of this together, it’s equally critical
to other species, all kinds of ground nesting birds, other resident mammals, the
whole host of you know, other wildlife species, fish species that come together in
terms of a total habitat base. The difficulty in the future as I see it is going to be
number one to keep or have adequate funding to support state and federal
programs that are leading the way on these issues. Number two, we have to
develop better ways, more incentives for private land owners to help be a part of
this overall effort because they need some additional incentive to do the things
we’d like to see them do and, and we’re paying them reasonable amounts of
money to certain ag programs or what, whatever today but that all, that changes
depending upon the administration and the Federal Farm Program provisions
and all that type of thing. We need to solidify that someway so that it isn’t sort of
a periodic program but we gotta find a better way to work with private land
owners and provide incentives for them. Now, as far as the hunters of course
just like fishermen have been one of the sole funding bases for many years for a
lot of these programs and they’ve more then paid their way and they’ll continue to
do that I’m sure, the question is the numbers and the cost and the inflation and a
whole lot of other things that are going on. So, we have to have a, a program or
a system that maintains strong rapport with the participates whether it’s duck
hunters or deer hunters or fishermen or bird watcher or whatever. I think the, the
non-wildlife groups that are users of non-wildlife species, bird watchers, people
that band bats or people that like butterflies whatever, they’ll all need to come
closer together in this total picture because they’re dependent upon the same
landscape and a lot of them are starting to recognize that to a larger degree and
I’m optimistic I think we’ll see, we’ll see that happen but not only from the stand
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point of providing additional funding to increase the support base there but also
to increase the political support base, state and Federal and the same certainly is
true in Canada where they face even greater problems.

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Harvey Nelson
My name is Harvey Nelson. We're at our residence here in Bloomington,
Minnesota. This is the fourteenth day of June 2002 and we're going to visit a bit
about some of the old migratory bird programs and people in the days gone by.
I've got to stop and think where it all started here. When I came back out of
World War II, I went back to the University of Minnesota and I, I started out to be
a veterinarian originally and then I found out that Minnesota didn't have a vet
school at that time so you had to finish up at Iowa State so after do that for a
couple of years I decided I'd, I wanted to do something different and I had a long
interest in fish and wildlife management which was you know, coming into the
forefront at that time and they were beginning to give degrees in that and, and
most all of the course work I had taken qualified for, for that program as well so I
just shifted over and, and I stayed there at the University of Minnesota, did my,
got my other graduate degree there in, must have been 40, 49 and I stayed on in
graduate school for a year or more and at that time of course jobs were pretty
hard to come by, fish and wildlife management was a program that was evolving
at the state level after World War II. A lot of the original people in the programs
had come back and you know, some went on back to school, others you know
were in the jobs that they had so in the process my wife and I decided that it was
time I went, went to work. So, I had applied for you know, work for the state of
Minnesota where I had worked part time as a, as a graduate student over the
years and then I'd, had applied for work with the Fish and Wildlife Service and
low and behold in the, in the spring of 1950 I suddenly found myself offered a
couple of different jobs with Minnesota D and R that was expanding right then but
more importantly I got some offers from the Fish and Wildlife Service and
because I was interested in, in the wetland programs I'd worked with in
Minnesota at that time and migratory birds, waterfowl particularly, I'd kind of
grown up in that atmosphere I decided that by golly, if I could get a job at the Fish
and Wildlife Service that was what I was going to do and so I did. I went to work
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with the Fish and Wildlife Service in, I think it was June of 1950 and started it in
South Dakota where they were just beginning the first wetland program, the Wall
Bay study area where Ken Black and Tom Evens had started that program and I
was assigned to the Sand Lake Refuge, International Wildlife Refuges out at
Columbia, South Dakota, just east of Aberdeen and my first assignments were
on the Wall Bay study area program and the wetland program with Black and
Evens and of course their, their years of work were published (inaudible) many
years later and quite, you know quite a renowned piece of work but I had the
privilege of working with those people and then from that point on I spent the next
two years at the Sand Lake Refuge but also working in other parts of the
migratory bird program and you know I've always considered myself fortunate
that I had the opportunity to work with some of those old timers that were just
putting the program together you know, guys like Art Hawkins had become the
Mississippi flyway representative at that point, Jerry Stout that lived in Aberdeen
was one of my first you know, study area bosses when I worked with him both in
South Dakota and in Canada and oh, some of the old enforcement people like
Everett Sutton was the game agent out of Aberdeen and had a lot of involvement
in the early programs and then over the years even though I left there you know,
many of the people came into that same arena guys like Milt Reeves, you were
just talking about and a whole host of other folks that were early people in the
program but again I was fortunate that I had an opportunity to you know, work
with some of those people that, that set up some of the first you know, ground
transects to measure breeding population and duck production initially in the
Dakotas and then expanded into Canada and, and like guys like Jerry Stout that
started the first, some of the first summer banding programs where we went out
and you know, literally dry trapped the, the adults, the females and the young
around the small ponds and so some of that early work was done there in the
early 50's. So, that's how I sort of you know, got into the program and evolved
into other kinds of job opportunities. After leaving the Dakotas I, I went to
Saginaw, Michigan and set up Shy A Walsy National Wildlife Refuge in the
Saginaw Valley, Judy and I lived there for three years putting that place on the
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map. Then I came back and oh, I worked in the regional office here in
Minneapolis at that time and spent a couple of tours of duty in training programs
in Washington, DC and in that process I, of course I was always interested in
research and had an opportunity to do further work in research while I was in
Michigan I finished my Master's Degree at Michigan State University and then
additional work on my PHD and I came back and one of those tours of duty I was
in Washington I had an opportunity to go into research for about 10, 12 years and
the first thing, the first assignment I had was to go back to North Dakota and set
up the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center which we started in 1963 and
then the buildings were completed in '65 and we staffed the program up in '65--
Well, based on what they learned in the wetland research program, the study
areas and that type of thing, what they were learning from the new survey
programs in the prairie pothole region of the US and Canada it became pretty
obvious that there was just a lot of more specific information needing, needed on
the breeding ecology of the prairie species and to tie that into the wetland
communities and that was sort of the foundation for setting up the Northern
Prairie Center, to begin to identify the, the relationships between breeding
populations and the habitat requirements in the prairie region particularly and that
was the mission that we started with. Then we also had to look at all the other
factors that, that influenced the, the success of production, you know be it
habitat, changing seasonal conditions, the draught periods, predation impacts, all
of these things had a direct influence on the, the size of the annual waterfowl
population of the prairie region of US and Canada. At the same time they set up
a comparable research group the, the Canadian Wildlife Service set up a
comparable group in Sasqutuen and that group is, you know expired too but the
program is still there. So, anyway again, I was fortunate because I had an
opportunity to, to start a new program and had an opportunity to hire just a lot of
good people that were interested in that kind of work and over the years many of
those people spent their career doing these things for the Service at Northern
Prairie and other places and so it was an interesting assignment, probably one of
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the most challenging I think I had my whole career and then while I was at
Jamestown I also, I got back in school again, I served on the graduate faculty at
North Dakota State University and continued to work on my graduate program
which they eventually, they eventually gave me a Doctor of Science Degree from
North Dakota State University for some of those efforts but anyway, at the same
time of course, we, we still had this network of, of old timers so to speak that
were, were still working in programs and helping to find the needs and so you
know, through the years the, you talked about some of these folks today you
know, the Art Hawkins and the Jerry Stouts of the world and Horton Jenson and
Milt Reeves and John Rogers that came on the scene later in the Washington
office that worked in the Manitoba Prairies on Scop early on and so it was kind of
a different atmosphere for, unless you came up through the ranks and came
through the programs you had a strong association with all these people and I
think that's, that's what helped make those programs so you know, successful
back in those days, didn't really have a lot of money to do these things. We were
lucky to get money to hire people and building new facilities was a, you know,
another challenge but eventually we got the support to do it and of course that
program is still there, still very active. And then I left, I left Jamestown research
program in, it must have been '74 or '75, went to Washington, Len Greenwald got
me back in there. Len was the Director at the time and so I went in there and I
spent several years as the Associate Director of the Service for the Fish and
Wildlife Resources and again, that was another new challenge and again, during
that period I had an opportunity to you know, to put employees, a lot of the other
administrative structures and program structures that were needed to, to manage
or provide some oversight for the whole field program in the whole migratory bird
arena. At that time you know, Walt Crissey was a very prominent researcher
and, and waterfowl manager at the, at Pautuxent around Laurel, Maryland. He
and, and Al Guise and others did some renowned work and they're still around
and very much interested in those things. So, out of all of that sort of emerged
the, the establishment of the office of migratory bird management and for the last
20, 30 years that's involved into the main research and management group
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dealing with migratory birds, particularly waterfowl on the North American
continent.
Well, there had been a lot of changes in the Washington office in terms, and the
Service as a whole as to how the organization was structured but, but back in
those days they had, it was simpler I mean, you had one entity that was
responsible for you know, Fish and Wildlife resources and another for, for
enforcement and then of course the ole, river basins program, ecological
services programs, see bald through on the other side of the picture an
endangered species program came into being, all of those things you know,
weren't there when I first went to work, when program needs you know sort of
dictated that, that they would have to be established to carry out that
responsibility. So, it was easier to do things I guess I would say but by the same
token, there was a defined need both in US and Canada particularly that the
migratory bird programs you know, needed to have better coordination, better
cooperation and the other thing we did at about that time that carried over almost
into present days was, we set up what we called a program review committee
between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service and
John Rodgers headed the migratory bird group at that point and he and I sort of
were the main US representatives and Jim Patterson and others from the
Canadian Wildlife Service did the same thing on the Canadian side and that
really lead to a you know, a major improvement in terms of coordination of
programs both in the US and Canada, breeding grounds, migration areas,
wintering programs all began to be tied together a lot better then they had been
so I viewed that as, it was a real need at that point and obviously it existed and it
was, was you know satisfied to a large degree and then of course out of that
whole arrangement you know, came some other predictions and, and needs that
were defined and one of those lead to the establishment or development of the
North American Waterfowl Management Plan so, but then I left Washington in I
think it was '74, '75 and I came back to the Twin cities as the regional director for,
for the north central region at that time and I spent another seven years doing
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that, during which time the whole concept of the North American Waterfowl
Management Program came into focus and I worked you know, with our folks
and various state people through the international association of Fish and Wildlife
agencies with the Canadian counterparts and we began to put together the
foundation for the North American plan. In, I think it was in 1986, '87, the plan
was signed finally in '86 and because I'd worked with that so close in it's
development and I was about ready to retire then, I'd, I'd spent all those years,
37 years I guess it was at that time but they, they asked me to stay another five
years and, and implement the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. So,
I agreed to do that, of course we started it, the implementation group out of the
Minneapolis office because that's where I was and we did that for about a year
and a half and kind of got things up and running and we got the joint venture
concept put in place and I think we started out with the five initial joint ventures
and had some grandiose plans but little by little it all fell in place and then it
became obvious that the program was getting bigger and the funding base had to
be established and you know, through Congressional support we got the North
American Wetlands Conservation Act passed and that provided the first major
US funding, you know direct funding, Federal funding for the plan matched by
state money and in 1990 we moved the office back to Washington DC because
we needed to be there by then. So, I went back and spent the last year and a
half in, back in DC when we set up the office there in Arlington, Virginia where it
still exists.
Well, there's no, you know, no question in my mind that there definitely just been
a whole host of people that have been involved from say the early 50's, mid 50's
right on through to, to, to today, different programs, a lot of changes. The biggest
changes have been in the landscape and unfortunately that continues to be the
major, the major problem but just looking back, see we went through some
relatively high waterfowl population levels in the mid 50's, that's about the time
the survey programs were coming into being and the, and the measurement
techniques probably were certainly not as great as they are, as good as they are
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today and they always need improvement so we don't quite know the magnitude
of what existed back in the mid 50's but you know, based on the survey data and
the hunting opportunity and the harvest surveys that were put in place at that
time had to be some of the best years. Then, of course these things are cycling
and particularly dealing with, with prairie ducks US and Canada, even more
cyclic because of periodic draught. So, we went though, you know some periodic
declines in, in habitat conditions in from a natural standpoint, both US and
Canadian prairies and then we get some wet cycles and things would recover
again but you know woven in all of this in both countries of course was a
continual loss and degradation of wetland habitat and grassland habitat. So,
while populations were you know, increasing on one had, the habitat quantity and
quality was declining on the other. So, of course many other kinds of programs
had been put in place to try to, to halt the decline or deterioration of habitat and
early on it be, it was well recognized that it would be virtually impossible for any
one or group of Federal agencies or state agencies singley or collectively to
handle this habitat program in terms of all of the requirement, everything that
needed to be done simply because there were not enough dollars and people to
do that, implement that kind of a program. It became obvious that down the
road, the future of wetlands and waterfowl really rested in terms of what happens
on private lands and as a result there was a whole you know, new wave of
programs and interest to try to dove tail wetland, grassland, waterfowl
management, migratory bird management with private lands programs, with the
Department of Agriculture's farm programs. It started with, way back with the,
with the soil bank geese that's evolved into what we have today in terms of CRP
and, and WRP, the, the water, wetland reserve program, the crop line reserve
program and those have been really tremendous Federal programs that have
provided you know, great opportunity to work with land owners to get them to
preserve and protect and manage important wetlands and grasslands on private
lands for in, for the incentives that they are provided through those programs you
know, of course then to supplement that the states and the Service continue to
expand their, their individual wetland programs you know, be it Minnesota’s has a
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big, you know wetland protection program that they started back in the, in the late
50's and the Dakota's and others have had comparable things, to the different
degrees and that of course serves as waterfowl production program, waterfowl
production area program into being you know back in the, in the late 50's, early
60's and has continued to be another important cog in all of this. So, if you,
you've had all these programs but you've also had these cyclic influences, return
of draught conditions and increased hunting pressure, increased demand for
hunting opportunity on the major species of waterfowl so while conditions have
fluctuated the, the way I like to cast this is that in spite of all of this and there
have been a lot of good programs put in place and a lot of you now conscientious
people working with these programs that helped make them successful be it in
Agriculture or Fish and Wildlife or Federal level, state level, whatever, whenever,
every time we'd decline or lose some ground and get to the low point of the cycle,
when we'd recover you'd never quite come back to where things were and that's
been a continuing problem as I see it in all of these management programs and
demand is still there, draught cycles will come and go but the problem is we're
losing, continue to lose ground in terms of habitat on private lands and in
Canada, the situation is even more complex because even though they've had
some, some, some good prairie management programs at the Provincial level
and Federal level they've never been able to implement or establish a major land
use, land management programs and private lands comparable to like the CRP
program in the US or the wetland reserve program in the US and they're still
trying to do that. So, as a result even on the Canadian scene where there were
even greater numbers of wetlands per, per square mile or whatever unit you want
to use, things have declined equally and unfortunately probably has some more,
more severe impact. So, we go though all these cycles and all these programs
trying to maintain the best quantity and quality of what we have out there in terms
of wetlands and grasslands in full production or shallow lakes or reservoirs for
migration use or the same is true in the wintering areas. It’s an insidious whittling
away at that base. Now, we just went through a fairly good water period in the
prairies and went back to fairly high levels of, of duck populations just during the
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past two years, 2000, 2001 probably was you know, excited as a very good year.
At the same time the draught picture started to come around the corner and now
we’re back looking at draught in the prairies and a decline in populations and that
means more restrictive hunting regulations, declining duck populations
particularly, don’t want to get into geese, that’s another, another situation but so
for all these 50 years or more everybody that’s been involved is, has been
working in this sort of cyclic program and, and the natural swing of things comes
and goes, all these other programs that have been put in place and there’s some
very good programs have been an attempt to, to prevent any further degradation
or loss of habitat and it’s been difficult and it will continue to be difficult and --
Well, back again after World War II and through the 40’s into the 50’s it was
recognized back in those days that there needed to be a stronger united front
presented by the hunting community and Ducks Unlimited of course, was one of
the first groups organized in the US and in Canada and Mexico that took on this
challenge to address the habitat protection issue through their members and fund
raising opportunities that they had. This also transcended into organization at
the state level like state waterfowl associations like here in Minnesota as I
mentioned, you know, since I retired ten years, 11 years ago I do a lot of work
with the Minnesota waterfowl association that’s dedicated to you know,
addressing this issue in the state of Minnesota, similar activities, similar
organizations in many other states. Local sportsmen organizations you know,
whatever their origins may be, have an opportunity to help you know, become
involved in these programs and over the years there have been a lot of attempts
to try to further unite the interest and support base of all of these hunting and
fishing community interests, same thing is true even on the fishing side but it’s a
difficult task, the interest is there, the organization structure is there in most
cases but when it comes down to developing a strong support base for national
legislation that would dictate and determine what kind of programs are authorized
and funded by Congress or what kind of programs are authorized and funded at
the state level by state legislators the strength often isn’t there and that’s a, that’s
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a bugaboo that the fish and wildlife community and those areas of interest that
have been faced since, ever since I’ve been around, have been so many
different attempts to try to organize that and there have been a lot of successful
attempts. I think we can look at the continuation of the, of the conservation
phases of the farm program, since 1985, a lot of that never would have
happened if there hadn’t been an organized, strongly supported local effort state
by state to make those things happen. Same is true at the state level, you know I
spent a lot of time with different conservation organizations here in Minnesota
and, and it’s a constant struggle to get the state legislature to recognize the need
of natural resource programs compared to all the other things that they need to
fund to get some balance in the picture and keep that focus there for now and for
the future. So, it’s, it occurs at the state level, it occurs at the national level. It’s
important that the hunting community, the fishing community maintain their
organizations that they can work through but they also need to be more active
and be more participative in supporting their cause because the final analysis,
those decisions are made by Congressional levels and at the state local interest,
the state legislatures.
I guess, you know just to wind up what we were talking about earlier, you know,
again I consider myself fortunate that I you know, came down the road through
the Fish and Wildlife Service you know, with many opportunities and a lot of good
programs, a lot of good people to help make all these things work and I was in
positions where I had an opportunity to you know, have some influence on trying
to move things in the right direction including the years how we revamped and
reestablished with John Rogers the whole regulatory setting process, that’s a
story in itself.
But anyway, I think in over the years, as I was saying in spite of all of these good
programs and, and struggles to get adequate fundings to support these programs
and many good programs are still in place and doing great things the North
American Waterfowl Management plan, classic example but in spite of that, you
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know there’s an increase to our public out there that are not fully aware of the,
the perhaps the significance of the North American Migratory Bird program, how
it originated, what’s gone into it and what it means to a lot of people in the long
terms, to a lot of agencies in the long term. There’s also been a change in, in the
interest of hunters, on one hand you know, over the years there, for a while we
had a, sort or a gradual interest, increase in the overall number of hunters but
then we reached a point that the segment of hunters that are waterfowl hunters
or migratory bird hunters began to decline, probably replaced by hunter interest
could be done easier at a local level, like more deer hunters, to balance it out but
at the same time as the overall human population is increased in the whole North
American continent there’s been a stronger interest by non-hunters, people that
consider themselves non-hunters, organized or not organized and over the years
of course we’ve spent a lot of time you know, working with, talking with the anti-hunting
groups if you want to cast them that way and that interest group
continues to be there and it in many cases you know continues to maintain it’s
strength and, at least, I’m, I’m no longer directly involved in a lot of that but I see
it still happening and in spite of the facts that you can lay on a table and support
the, the cause if you will for migratory bird hunting there is just an element that,
that’s just opposed to that and you reach a point, you have to ask yourself how
much effort is it really worth to continue to do this kind of a battle while the
resources are going down the drain. If we could channel some of the effort into
more positive things for the resource base then it seems to me we, we’d all be
further along and then we’d be doing things more constructive. It’s a tough, it’s a
tough issue. There’s a lot of, a lot of different organizational effort at the state
level particularly. It varies depending on what part of the geographic part of the
US you’re in but here in the Midwest and the prairie country a lot of that interest
still centers around migratory birds and waterfowl particularly and there’s a,
there’s a continual need to, to have some oversight in terms of what these
organizations are doing and what their, what their plans are, what they tackle,
what they challenge and I expect that will continue. I, when I was still in official
capacity where I had to deal directly with these issues, my position was that you
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gotta deal with the facts on the table and if you’re honest with everybody and got
the facts in front of you that’s pretty hard to refute, that usually will survive in the
face of personal opinion and a whole lot of organizational concepts.
Well, my sense is that that support basis is, is still there and the strength of it
depends to a large degree upon the issues of the moment, what kind of
involvement is being requested by the primary Congressional people and
particularly those that are involved with the major committees that deal with
natural resource programs including the Fish and Wildlife Service. You know, we
never would have gotten the North American Wetlands Conservation Act passed
if a few key Congressional people hadn’t gotten behind it and said this needs to
be done and, and we see that today in the farm program. Unfortunately, I think in
this whole process there also have been other issues, other kinds of programs
that have surfaced you know, like the endangered species program, a very
necessary program in it’s own right but it’s also used at times to, in a different
sense to refute you know, practical wildlife management and hunting. So, it
needs to be a balance of these views and issues and how they’re dealt with at
the managerial level and I think that gets us in trouble at the Congressional level
sometimes again, depending upon how these programs and these issues are
reflected at the state level, at the local level, how they impact somebody, whether
it’s the kind of hunting season they are apt to have or, or can’t have or some land
restrictions, some private land management restriction that may result from some
endangered species issues. So, Fish and Wildlife managers today have a
difficult task and they really need to be up to date on all of these things to, to
achieve this balance of opinion and support, that’s the way I always try to
approach it but it’s tough to do.
When I first, well, when I was still in graduate school, late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s
and when I first went to work for the Service, the waterfowl regulations setting
process was, was apparently relatively simple in those days. Some of the key
folks that knew a little bit about what was going on in duck production in the US
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and Canada, mostly in the prairies or from some other key locations in the
country, got together and put their information together and said by gosh, this is
the way it looks and then they may have had a telephone call or two with
counterparts in Canada or they may have had a meeting at the border and in one
day’s time sort of arrived at some conclusions, yes, I guess we can have these
kinds of seasons and then they went back and, and put that into some kind of
recommendation like Fish and Wildlife Service to the Director and to the
Secretary of Interior and in the sort time there was a set of regulations. Well, it
was much easier to do because they were, they were certainly at one stage you
know, greater populations, more birds to deal with, hunting demand wasn’t
perhaps as great although there were a lot of hunters. It just hadn’t become as
institutionalized I guess you would say, at that point. Well, then it became
obvious as they began to learn more about waterfowl populations, duck
populations particularly from the Canadian, US breeding grounds surveys that
were implemented you know, in the ‘50’s and improved there on. They suddenly
began to realize that there’s a limit as to what the land can produce under given
conditions and in some cases, I mean maybe we can’t, if the populations are
dropping a little bit because of draught we’re going to have to have some
comparable decrease in harvest to balance that population level and of course
that’s what lead to the, the more formal organization of the, what became the
Office of Migratory Bird Management that Walt Crissey originally headed up and
John Rogers you know, succeeded him and, and then of course that also brought
in that whole new research element that provided a new base of information that
presumably gave them a greater capability in making, fine tuning decisions both
US and Canada and in, in a sense that’s the way it worked, the program was
good and I think the people that began to understand population dynamics based
on new research suddenly began to realize that hey, there’s some alarming
things here and there’s a limit to how much one can harvest or over, the
possibility of over harvesting given populations of birds and that’s still in the
background today. Well, in that whole process the Office of Migratory Bird
Management began to take on a greater prominence in the Fish and Wildlife
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Service and became the focal point for waterfowl management by the Fish and
Wildlife Service in, in combination through the states and the flyway councils and
of course the flyway councils were, were established in the, well, in the mid to
late ’50’s. I remember going to one of the first Mississippi flyway organizational
meetings here in St. Paul back in, it must have been ’51, ’52 and these were
common concerns you know, sometimes a little information you know, it wets
your appetite and you need to do better. So, out of all of that you know, it
became the, it was the origin of the flyway council system, the four flyway
councils established in the US, the technical sections of the flyway councils to
deal with the scientific information and the processes for bringing all this
information together in a meaningful way to be recast in terms of annual
regulations and there’s been a group of hard working people in that migratory
bird office for many years as you well know and continue to be and the problems
haven’t gone away. The process is there, I think the process they continue to
improve from a scientific point of view. There are just so many things that are,
that aren’t fully understood and just like right now, today there’s the concern that
hey, the production in 2002 is not going to be so good and what do we do about
that? Well, when they got into the adaptive harvest management strategy
planning process and that provided another new vehicle for presumably helping
do a better job of setting regulations (inaudible) crisis, what part of that set of
strategies is applicable when you start to go down hill and we’ll see what
happens in 2002.
Well, I was involved in, in a lot of the early discussions about the, you know the
theories and principles you have adaptive harvest management and I think, you
know I certainly support the concept. The theory I think is good and in practice if
you can define populations levels to the degree that the concept requires then it
seems to work but I'm not always certain that the population data you know, is, is
adequate or sufficient to provide the precise degree of information that they
apparently need to make it work and I think that's what they are facing now.
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They're trying to, kind of reassess, the principles of the adaptive harvest
management process but it's just one more tool.
Well, way back when the conservation movement you know, was started, I guess
you can go back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt but even to Ding Darling
when it came to migratory birds. One of the tenants of a lot of those early
programs and thinkers was that we've got to get people involved. We're
managing these programs and the resource for, in part for use by people. So,
you know, whether it's musky fisherman or goose hunters or duck hunters, they
need to be, get better organized so they can have a voice in the resource that
they use in terms of it's management and of course the way to do that was to
establish sportsman clubs in quotes, of one type or another to provide that type
of local organization but then they discovered that while you may have these
local organizations and a lot of these centered around private hunting clubs
originally because that's where the, the core interest was or the core group of
people that had the interest. So, it was sort of you know, a double edged
approach and I think the, while conservation organization whatever their titles
may have been you know whether, those that came under the umbrella of the
National Wildlife Federation or later what evolved through DEU or what's evolved
today at the state level in various states. The heart of that whole movement
came largely through, through hunting clubs or organizations of groups affiliated
with such mostly because they had the interest and a lot of them had to tie in and
political base to work from to promote it and a lot of them had the money to do it
so it took a combination of a lot of resources on that side to make things work.
So, in the, in the migratory bird work and the waterfowl hunting aspect hunting
clubs I think over the years you know, played a real strong role in, in how these
programs evolved and then many times they had better access to political
interests and influences then, and other elements at the state level for example.
So, they played a strong role there and I think they played even a stronger role
which is evident today where a lot of big private hunting clubs also protected and
managed some quality habitat. So, they played an equal role in the whole
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habitat protection and development and management aspect in, in certain parts
of the country, stronger in some areas then others. Strong in the coastal areas,
both Atlantic and Pacific as you know. It was fairly strong in the Great Lakes
because of the big marshes that were going down the tube and some of the best
ones that are made today are the ones that were private hunting clubs where
they've been bought up and turned into National Wildlife Refuge or state
management areas and that's usually history of many of these. So--
(End of side one)
a lot of conflicts as well but for the most part I think they played a positive role.
Well, I guess like I indicated in our discussion here today, I mean first of all, I
keep saying that I was fortunate because I came into this kind of work, kind of a
career at a time when there were just a lot of good people in the business, the
old timers that learned the hard way, a lot of them. Our, you know, world
renowned waterfowl people, wetland people even in today's world so an
opportunity to work with those people, gain that experience was a you know,
tremendous help for me. So, number one I had the opportunity to work with a lot
of good people and I've used that approach and that principle in most everything
I've done. I always looked for, if I had an opportunity to hire someone or to
employ people I always tried to get the best qualified there was, in the long run
it's paid off. Northern Prairie Research Center is a classic example, I think.
North American Plains and others but not all the challenges that I had over the
years, opportunities, I think the most challenging assignment I had was setting up
the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, getting that staffed up in short
order and getting some research programs on line that began to address the
problems that they, they wanted looked at and particularly to relate those to
management needs, not necessarily a long term research view. So we had to,
we had to establish a balance, short term, long term research program that
began to address you know, current management issues and that’s still true
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today. Probably, well no doubt and the second most challenging assignment
was to help develop the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and then
implement that effectively during the five year period that we allotted in
cooperation with Canada and Mexico.
But I guess among other things, the position that I, of all the positions that I’ve
had and opportunities and assignments in my whole career, almost 42 years one
of the most interesting and I’ve said this in other interviews and what now too,
and in press is being a Regional Director because a Regional Director in the Fish
and Wildlife Service at least through my tenure had an opportunity to through
good staff people and cooperation of the states and within our region to really
influence important programs and an opportunity to get things done and I look
back and wonder how many opportunities I might of missed but hopefully not a
lot because we always kind of used that approach like now is the time to make
things happen and I think that opportunity is still there and sometimes the regions
you know, they’re a little more autonomous then one would think but you still
have the whole organizational structure of the Fish and Wildlife Service and
having spent a lot of time in the Washington office as well as the regional office I
can, I always felt I could, at least I had a chance at balancing the, the
requirements in the administrative you know, authority to make things work. You
know, I always think about is that you know, I retired in ’92 so I’ve got 10 years of
retirement behind me now and, and that’s been interesting too but when anyone
retires from any type of a job you know, it’s difficult to keep up with the, with all
the current activity and, and I don’t look at the numbers as much as I used to in
terms of waterfowl populations or the dollars or the acres or whatever is going on
but I’m, I’m still concerned about everything moving in the right direction.
It’s kind of interesting that you asked that because I’ve got to go give a
presentation at a symposium here in Minneapolis next Friday that’s going to talk
about the or I’m going to talk about the future of wetlands and waterfowl
management. But, in a nutshell you know, the future is, it poses some difficult
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aspects, some difficult challenges. We talked about a lot of this already in terms
of programs that need to be kept in place to, there’s constant vigilance about
maintaining habitat quality and quantity as well as the, the population levels of
birds desired by not just the hunting public but the public at large that’s interested
in migratory birds so there’s another big dimension here about, in terms of people
that are interested in, in migratory bird resource or the wetland resource or the
grassland resource because when you put all of this together, it’s equally critical
to other species, all kinds of ground nesting birds, other resident mammals, the
whole host of you know, other wildlife species, fish species that come together in
terms of a total habitat base. The difficulty in the future as I see it is going to be
number one to keep or have adequate funding to support state and federal
programs that are leading the way on these issues. Number two, we have to
develop better ways, more incentives for private land owners to help be a part of
this overall effort because they need some additional incentive to do the things
we’d like to see them do and, and we’re paying them reasonable amounts of
money to certain ag programs or what, whatever today but that all, that changes
depending upon the administration and the Federal Farm Program provisions
and all that type of thing. We need to solidify that someway so that it isn’t sort of
a periodic program but we gotta find a better way to work with private land
owners and provide incentives for them. Now, as far as the hunters of course
just like fishermen have been one of the sole funding bases for many years for a
lot of these programs and they’ve more then paid their way and they’ll continue to
do that I’m sure, the question is the numbers and the cost and the inflation and a
whole lot of other things that are going on. So, we have to have a, a program or
a system that maintains strong rapport with the participates whether it’s duck
hunters or deer hunters or fishermen or bird watcher or whatever. I think the, the
non-wildlife groups that are users of non-wildlife species, bird watchers, people
that band bats or people that like butterflies whatever, they’ll all need to come
closer together in this total picture because they’re dependent upon the same
landscape and a lot of them are starting to recognize that to a larger degree and
I’m optimistic I think we’ll see, we’ll see that happen but not only from the stand
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point of providing additional funding to increase the support base there but also
to increase the political support base, state and Federal and the same certainly is
true in Canada where they face even greater problems.